How to be professionally doomed
by Ruler of the Fake Empire
Summary: Stiles is hopeless in most cases. He's tall, lanky, irresponsible, a walking reference to pop culture and he may or may not of hacked into too many government websites to count. Derek is also pretty hopeless, but in the opposite way. When they are forced to join forces for the *sighs* greater good, things get turned upside down in the most serious of ways. Sterek.
1. Chapter 1

The things we do when surrounded by silence are amazing. When no one is watching, the things we do are the things that define us. When there is no one to entertain or impress we are cold shells, dull and boring, but completely unique. To be silent is to be free. I suppose this is why some people lock themselves away or travel the world, never meeting the same person twice. We are so interested in being interesting that we constantly tire ourselves out.

Then... then there are those people.

Those insufferable, horrible, confusing, alienating people that just. Do not. Fucking. Care. They're the ones who have figured out that you don't have to perform for whatever metaphorical audience your shoved in front of. Out of all the people, far and wide, most are unhappy. They soil themselves with wishes for riches when really, its far easier to just take what you can get and see where you end up. That's what Stiles had been doing for most his entire life. Just wandering around, occasionally making pop culture references and occasionally almost dying because of how annoying he liked being to people he didn't like. Most of the people he met thought he was "an egoistical fool". Then some people thought he was kind. All because he did not give two shits what anyone bothered thinking about, especially if it concerned him and his not-antics.

Sometimes, when life was quiet he would sneak out of his house late at night, not that he needed to considering he lived alone and wander around the city, breathing in the smell of ageing cigarette smoke and forgetting. The moon shone down at him, through the towers of metal and glass, his jacket protecting him from the harsh cold and his eyes shining quietly. The night people would nod to him as he walked and he would smile to them because no one ever did and they deserved it. Sometimes he would sit and make bad jokes to make the old man at the end of the lane laugh, but tonight he wasn't there so he continued deeper into the city. He wandered musingly, buying a coffee and taking sips.

The stars looked down at him and he smiled up at them. Everyone he knew was asleep, mid dream, but he, he was up and about, holding a one-sided debate with himself about the possible existence the power puff girls. People say that you always come up with the best things in the shower, but all Stiles thought of in the shower was how the universe was a warm place and he liked cheese crackers. He came up with his most fantastic ideas when it was the middle of the night and he had nothing better to think about. He was just clever like that. He had a notebook in his pocket in case he thought of anything particularly spectacular, but somehow he really didn't think it was one of those nights. He wasn't in a mood for cleverness, he was in a mood for novelty. Which was stupid really because he was always in a mood for novelty, but tonight he was in a mood specifically for novelty.

Which, eventually, was found in the back ally behind an old bank in the form of three men and a girl spray painting one of the walls. They all wore black hoodies and were laughing with each other. Stiles quietly took out his phone and began videoing them. He wasn't particularly interested in the people in black hoodies, but he just thought that the big street art mural they had obviously just begun was fucking awesome. Like hell he was going to pass up the chance to video it's creation. He sat down, across from them, careful not to be noticed or startle them. He'd seen them around a few times, here and there, and they seemed mostly harmless if not a little deranged, but heck, he was a little deranged. Who wasn't really?

Almost an hour later Stiles had given the three men and single woman nicknames and they were almost done with the mural that he was quite sure was illegal. There was the tall male that seemed to be the grumpiest and most brooding person Stiles had ever seen in his whole life. As far as Stiles was concerned he was named Sourwolf from now to forever. Then there was the dark skinned kid who seemed around his age who seemed just content to be painting. The growling blond guy who simply seemed irritated, if not at ease in the shadows. Then there was the blond woman who was beautiful, seemingly vain and but also a little scathing and a little insecure. They hadn't yet noticed him sitting there and he was actually rather impressed with himself for staying still this whole time.

The mural was beautiful, in an edgy, interesting sort of way. All jagged and bright green. He liked it. He liked a lot of things. This was so going on YouTube.

At some point he kind of dozed off, maybe, he couldn't really remember falling asleep, but if he was waking up he figured it had to of happened, the question was when. Someone poked his cheek.

"He's kind of cute... in a... dorky sort of way" someone said, presumably the someone who was poking his cheek.

"You do realise he was videoing us, right? We could go to jail if this gets out" another voice said, this one a little further away from him and his ears and bordering on irritable.

"We could always just kill him and shove his body in a dumpster" a third voice growled. Stiles immediately felt hard done by. He opened one eye and slid it towards the sound of the voice, his face set in a deep frown.

"Please, if I'm going to die the least you could do is give it a little bit of excitement. I mean at least do something entertaining with the body, being stuffed in a dumpster is about as clichéd as you can get" he hadn't been glared at so hard in his entire life and he was actually surprised he didn't spontaneously combust. He counted the fact that he didn't a win. The man who had spoken was the tall guy from before, the one that did nothing but shout a lot. Stiles hadn't really gotten a good look at his face, but now he could see that the man had obviously stolen his features from some incredibly beautiful god. Dark hair and these stupidly blue eyes. God, someone just really needed to give this man a modelling carrier. Right now.

"Tell me what you were doing videoing us and I just might let your death be postponed?" Normally when getting death threats thrown at you one might squeal or run away or at least make some tensing of the muscles, but Stiles couldn't be bothered. Tensing just sounded like way too much work. Plus the threat didn't bug him much. Sure, the guy talking looked like he would be able to destroy a few Death Stars with a wave of his hand, but he was also suppressing a yawn.

"Sure, I liked the mural and you guys painting it looked cool so I videoed it. It isn't actually that complicated, I'm pretty sure you should of figured it out without me having to tell you" Stiles yawned to himself, taking his phone back from black kid who was offering it to him. A grumpy bunch they were. The second voice, who happened to be the blond guy, muttered something inaudible that was probably an insult to him, but then again, he didn't really care.

"I deleted the video" the black kid didn't give him a smile of apology, or any expression at all. They were all just kind of looking at him as if they were expecting him to jump out his skin and scream himself senseless. He found that actually a little insulting.

"No you didn't" Stiles replied in a singsong-ish manner as he crossed his legs and turned on his phone. He didn't wait for the question linked to his answer, instead he simply stood and walked off. Turning once he was a few feet away. "Cool mural by the way. Seeya round" it was around this point that Stiles noticed that he could actively feel his his soul being burned out by the tall guy's glare. If they ever met again he was going to have to ask him how to do that. Maybe he was just born with the ability to glare someone's soul out. Damn, that would come in bloody handy.

##

He didn't retire to his house immediately. He didn't feel like it just yet. He was still stuck being a person and the whole sleep thing was technically necessary, but didn't mean he had to fall to it like a normal human being. Instead he went to an all night convenience store and got himself some edibles. To say that his house was often bare of things with actual nutrition was an understatement to the extent that it was actually painful.

Stiles still didn't really care, he had a metabolism like the hulk and captain america's love child, some how he put sugar and fast foods into his body and then it was just mysteriously gone the next day. As far as he was concerned genetics had not screwed him over as yet. But then he was probably going to get some sort of genetically passed down cancer to even things out.

He sat down a little way away from the convenience store on the curb, illuminated by a street lamp like an ominous presence. He would of thought he looked kind of cool. He yawned again and figured he really should of been getting home, but it wasn't like he had anything on tomorrow. All hail the world of Saturdays. A few cars went by as he ate and a few people walked past on the sidewalk, giving him strange looks as they did. He didn't care.

He watched quietly as a car came swerving down the back street, constantly rolling off course and jauntily reasserting itself to stop from crashing into any buildings. Whoever was controlling the vehicle either needed to learn how to drive a car or lay off the tequila. Stiles watched half in concern and half in unneeded amusement. His amusement drained violently when he saw the silhouette of a broad shouldered man stumble out of a darkened ally and onto the street. He must of been the only one to notice the increasing speed of the drunk driver's car or the fact that the broad shouldered man had paused in the middle of the fucking road. Someone's an idiot.

It all happened in slow motions, like some bad nineteen 80s pop culture film. Nothing in his life had ever been reduced to the achingly sluggish pace of frame by frame. In his defence it wasn't like there was anything he could do by yell out pointlessly and watch the man fly uh gracefully through the air. The care didn't even slow down, it only screeched around the corner at a speed that certainly wasn't legal.

Stiles ran towards the unmoving figure of the man, that lay slumped on the tarmac. In the dim he could just see his chest moving up and down. Oh, thank god for that. He knelt tentatively beside the man and cupped his cheeks as the moon came out from behind a cloud.

"Ah" Stiles said quietly. "So we meet again" it must of been some sort of freakish coincidence that it was the tall shouty guy from before. Stiles wondered if the other three were just going to come bursting out of the ally and accuse him of beating up their boss. The man had a bloody scrap on the right side of his forehead and bloody was dripping into his eye. It didn't look too bad, not bad enough for stitches at least. Though he was still unconscious so that was probably enough for worry. Stiles ran his hand over the man's chest and stomach like he dad taught him to, patiently ignoring the rock hard muscle and instead focusing on the shift of ribs that usually came when they were broken.

"Fuck... off" his voice was groggy and scratchy and Stiles looked back up to his face, one of his hands still cupping his cheek.

"That's not a very nice thing to say to the person helping you, now is it?" He smiled as if this as what he did on a daily basis and the man scowled at him. Obviously he wasn't used to being in pain.

"Fuck... off"

"Again with the swearing. Plus I can't "fuck off", I'm too nice and if I leave you you're probably going to lie here until sun up" Stiles answered cheerily. He'd already figured out what to do, he'd very clever and he knew what to do. Had he been thinking properly he probably would of noticed that his abilities to make split second decisions usually had a lot to do with atomic bombs, conspicuous amounts of candy and bad endings. It took a lot of work, and a lot of unnecessary grunting on the man's part, but Stiles still somehow managed to get the man up and moving at an, albeit, slow pace. His chin was hooked over Stiles' left shoulder, his chest pressed into Stiles' back, his feet dragging behind him. They must of looked so weird.

"Why the heck do you have tattoos?" The man slurred. Stiles almost left him there, just to teach him a lesson about being nice to people who are doing you a favour. At least the man wasn't hallucinating anything. He did have tattoos, more than most actually, but he was probably mentioning the ones on his neck. He got them back when he was a teenager and loved them.

"The usual reasons. Daddy issues, bar fights, jail time with nothing to do" for the record he had a great relationship with his dad, he rarely went to bars and he had only been to jail once and that was for a very short period of time. The man snorted, but remained silent for a little while.

"When your all fixed and shit we are so going to have a very very long talk about the perks of this wonderful thing called a diet" Stiles legs burned as he struggled up the steps of his house. He'd only had it about a year, mostly because his job paid him well and living with his dad got a little old. It was a nice house, smallish and quietish and friendly. Ivy grew up the banisters and it was painted a peeling light blue.

The man didn't reply to his quip and Stiles is pretty sure he passed out again. Lightweight. The dragging continued, until the door was open and the man was on the couch and the sun was beginning to rise. By this point Stiles was read to collapse into his own bed and punch everyone and then eat some waffles, but like he mentioned before, he was too nice and he didn't want the man to bleed to death on his couch. So he did what he had to do. He wrapped bandages around the guy, and made sure he was comfortable, and put a cereal box on the kitchen counter with a batman bowl and a spoon so that he could have some breakfast when he woke up because, god knew, Stiles was going to sleep into the new millennium.

Author's Notes:

Thank you for reading my new fanfic. I have fallen madly in love with Sterek and I can't wait to really get into it. I apologise if there are any grammar or spelling mistakes as editing is not my strong suit. Favourites, follows and reviews are welcome. Thank you for reading and I hope you enjoyed this!

much love,

Clementine


	2. Chapter 2

Everything hurt.

And by everything he literally meant everything. Every bone in his body sulked and growled at the fact that they had been twisted to such uncomfortable angles. He expected to be waking up to be lying on the road as he had at the last moment he could properly recall; the impact, the breathing, the frantic swim in the general direction of consciousness. He was never getting run over again. Ever.

He stared blankly at the celling and watched a dubious looking crack sit quietly on the celling. He smelt something that remotely called to him from across the room. His head was quietly aching to itself like an unamused toddler and it hurt to breathe. A blanket had been lazily tossed over him, but he couldn't remember it coming to be there. He almost remembered being dragged somewhere. A half formed conversation, filled to the brim with sarcastic comments and Derek's weak attempts to ward whoever it was away from him. It had been… that kid; the one with the camera. Well, what a bloody coincidence.

He let out a strangled groan, gripping the blanket to console himself. It wasn't working very well. He continued to stare up at the celling though he could hear the sound of someone pottering around, probably the owner of whatever house he had been dragged into. God, he was going to destroy whoever had dared run him down. Somehow he managed to haul himself into sitting position, his leg aching as they hit the floor. He rested his elbows on his knees and his head in his hands. He probably looked like some poor sod beaten half to death.

"Good afternoon, Sourwolf" Derek had known he was there, so he didn't jump, though he still looked up, mildly curious. It had been dim the night before; he hadn't gotten a good look. He remembered something about lankiness and a rounded face covered in sarcasm and the odd mole. He looked much the same, only no longer clothed in red hoody and jeans, this time only boxers and a shirt. He was carrying around a box of steaming pizza and was munching contentedly. His hair was off in most directions imaginable and he had obviously only just woken up. Obviously this was one of those people that ordered takeout as soon as need be.

Derek growled at him.

His eyes were half open, and his shoulders were relaxed, most definitely not the usual reaction to Derek's less that friendly demeanour. He swallowed some pizza.

"Wow, you're intimidating" then he walked off, leaving the pizza box on the armchair as if it was a peace offering. The boy obviously didn't know what he was, and if he had any suspicions about how quickly Derek was healing he wasn't bringing it up. At least now that he was conscious and distinctly not dead, the healing process would accelerate even more than it already was. Those broken ribs wouldn't stand a chance.

He stood on aching legs, stomping his way towards the armchair, his stomach growling harsh motivation to his brain. He snatched the pizza box off the chair and stuffed the dough into his mouth, almost groaning at the taste. Thank god, it was meat lovers. He almost sat down again before stopping himself. If he sat down again he would probably just go back to sleep and he couldn't have that. Instead he stomped over to the window and yanked open the curtain.

Sunlight streamed in and he growled again as the bright light assaulted his eyes. It must have been early afternoon, though he wasn't surprised. He was a heavy sleeper. Usually it was only his stomach that ever woke him, just as it had done today. He was tempted to just sit back down, go back to sleep and hopefully just wake up the day before. Yeah, that would be great. Unfortunately it seemed that that was not how the rest of his day was going to go down.

He could still hear the kid wandering about the small house, his steady, calm heartbeat. He sniffed the air uncertainly and the kid wandered back in, presumably because he had forgotten where he had out the pizza box. Derek offered it to him and he took a slice before wandering away again. This time Derek followed him, suspicious. The house smell weird. Like comic books and electronics and…

"Why the hell does your house smell like Scott?" His voice came a growl as it almost always did when he was forced to mention one of his betas. The smell was stale, but probably permanent with how much it had been rubbed in. The kid must of practically lived here.

"Huh?" He shook his head weakly. "I need to buy more cereal" Stiles murmured. That wasn't what he was trying to say, but somehow he brain turned "yeah, Scott's in New York at the moment doing Allison shaped stuff, but he's my best mate so he hangs out here a lot. I guess that means your the scary, bossy, grumpy alpha I've been hearing about?" into a strange yearning for cereal.

"Kid" the man growled. "Answer the question before I bash your head in with a rock" for a second Stile wondered to himself where the man would acquire a rock considering they were in a very suburban landscape. Then he realised he was being threatened and promptly had a private freak out within his own head which largely consisted of profanity and an abundance of floating cereal boxes.

"Oh! Sorry! He hangs out here a lot, because he doesn't like to bug his mum with his presence because he has issues. Also, are you the alpha he told be about? Like, werewolf alpha? He mentioned your name at some point. Darnell? Darrell? Danish? Derek? Derek, that's it! Are you Derek the scary alpha, because seriously, dude, I gotta hand it to you, you. Are. Badass. I mean really-"

"Shut up" this time he made his voice a growl on purpose. "Who the hell are you anyway?"

"Oh! I'm Stiles, its a pleasure to met you" the kid spun around abruptly and stuck out his hand. Derek stared at the hand like it was some alien implement that was going to try and eat him before tentatively taking it and giving it a firm shake.

"Derek"

The kid smiled at his brief introduction and he let himself be led into the kitchen.

"You were pretty beat up last night, you want something to eat? Then again you're like a werewolf and you have all that superhero-ish heally magical powers so you're probably fine. Still, I have pudding, do you want some pudding?" Obviously this guy had less mouth to brain filer capacity than a goldfish. Derek glared at him, but nodded nonetheless. A small tub of pudding was thrown at him and he caught it flawlessly, already feeling his bones realigning themselves into their rightful positions.

"Oh, and by the way, Isaac is coming to pick you up in an hour" that was probably the shortest sentence Stiles had spoken so far, but Derek wasn't blinking confusedly for that reason.

"Issac? Why isn't he here already? How did you contact him?" He stared at the kid, had he underestimated him? Probably not. Stile waved his hand dismissively at him. What a brat.

"I went through your pockets fifteen minutes before you woke up and called the most recent caller. He said he had a midday class for uni, so he'll be here around three" the kid sat down at the dining table a began to eat his own pudding. Derek growled to himself again and sat down opposite the kid, looking around the small kitchen. It looked almost as though it have been robbed. Papers were strewn all over, and random bits of technology were sitting on every surface. Piles of books lined the walls, from novels to chemistry to history to science. The kid began to alternate between tapping on his incredibly sleek laptop and reading a thick book that was titled "quantum physics for fools". Derek grumbled something under his breath and grabbed a random book from one of the piles, flipping through it and settling down. He had an hour to kill, he might as well wait somewhere else.

The kid seemed to sink into thought, tapping away. Sometimes wandering off and then wandering back, muttering gibberish to himself while he did. Derek wondered while he sat if he was a uni student like the rest of the pack. Probably. He was too young to be doing anything else really. Seemed to be right out of high school. Yet, he also seemed to be someone a little to clever for his age. As far as he knew most uni students didn't have old pieces of car engine on there kitchen benches and dubious looking, glowing liquids in test tubes sitting inside their refrigerator.

And Derek had always figured that the mad scientist gist was always just a cliché.

Apparently he was wrong.

Someone rung the doorbell and Derek looked up. He could smell Issac standing outside the door and hear his heartbeat, but he made no move to get up. He just wanted to finish the chapter.

"Hey, Sourwolf!" The kid called from another room. Derek glared at the wall at the nickname. "Can you get the door!?" At least his sentences were getting smaller. Derek huffed, annoyed, but heaved himself up nonetheless. With a deep irritable frown he stomped towards the door and opened it. Issac stood in the door way, utterly prepared for his alpha's arrival at the door.

"Hey, Derek" Isaac had his hands in his pockets and his uni bag slung over his shoulder. Derek could hear Erica and Boyd waiting in the car, arguing in quick curt sentences. Derek glared at the young man. "Oh, don't look so betrayed, Stiles said you were sleeping and I had things to do" Isaac shrugged at him and he glared harder.

"Hi Isaac!" They heard Stiles holler from where ever he had found himself. Derek couldn't help, but cringe.

"Hi Stiles!" Isaac hollered in return. Derek quickly grabbed his shoulders and spun him around.

"Get. In. The. Car" his voice reached dangerous levels of low and Isaac smiled to himself, despite the fact that he was being shoved roughly into a car, mostly on top of his two closed pack mates. The car door slammed shut and he had to bend his legs up at the knees so that he could fit. It was surprisingly comfortable, being spread out on his stomach over Boyd and Erica's knees. He craned his neck and looked up at Boyd.

"Hello" he said.

"Howdy" his friend replied.

It was obvious that Boyd had already accepted the situation as it was and was tapping the rhythm of whatever music he was listening to onto Isaac's back. Erica on the other hand was desperately trying to claw herself out from under him. It wasn't working.

Meanwhile in the front compartment of the car, Derek tossed the book his had unconsciously stolen from Stiles' house into the passenger seat and drove away. He was going to go home and then he was going to sleep, and then he was going to eat his entire house and then he was going to punch Peter to make himself feel better and that was going to be it.

But then… but then there was all the shit that was going on in his head that he needed to dealt with. Perhaps the Stiles kid could be of use.

If he had seen anything…

Authors's notes:

Okay, here we go. Chapter 2, up and running. I hope you in enjoyed this, but most of all I hope that you liked it enough to tap a few buttons. (Direct hint to favourites and follows and that).

Much love,

Clementine


	3. Chapter 3

A group of eight young people stood nervously by the door of a small quaint looking house who's windows were lit with the electric lights inside. They talked quietly to themselves, debating whether to knock on the door. The night was silent around them and the moon was high and pearly in the sky. It was just a thin crescent this night, as if being held by a thin thread in the void.

The only one who seemed to even vaguely think that going into the house was a good idea was a tan young man who was clinging protectively, but unnoticeably to the dark haired young woman beside him who seemed pretty indifferent to it all. Actually she was the only one who had decided to take some sort of action beyond just arguing about whether going into the house was a bright idea.

Allison rung the door bell as bravely as she could, hearing Derek growl somewhere in the background, it didn't really matter. He wasn't her alpha, not really at least. Plus it was the only way they were going to get anywhere. They all waited politely and tensely for Stiles to come to the door and let them in. They could all hear him coming, setting down his tools on the way.

The door abruptly swung inwards and three of the eight took a complimentary step back.

"Greetings Scott and Alison and… friends." He paused for a moment as if suddenly thinking of something. "Do any of you know how to weld?" His cocked his head to the side questioningly. To this Boyd raised his hand, looking positively uncaring about the whole affair. In his defence he was positively uncaring about most affairs. Stiles grinned and grabbed his arm. "Great! Come on in whoever the heck you are" the other seven wandered meekly after Stiles and the kid, though Alison stayed in the kitchen with the phone after Stile's yelled something about Chinese take out over his shoulder.

They ended up in the basement though only one of them knew why. It smelt like metallics and smoke and chemicals. Everyone, but Scott and Stiles wrinkled their noses, they had long grown used to it. Stiles barely even had a sense of smell at all anymore. Almost immediately Stiles got Boyd welding something that looked like a box that looked like a patchwork of scrapyard metals. He somehow managed to convince Isaac to carry boxes and piles of books out off the way of a closet door that had supposedly been forgotten about. It was still a mystery how he had done that. Erica had seated herself on top of one of workbenches and chatted sourly with Isaac while he worked. Jackson and Linda had taken one look at the basement and yelled to Stiles that they were going to go watch tv and to whisper their orders into Alison's ear while she ordered he late night Chinese. Scott was leaning on one of the workbenches chatting uselessly with the owner of the house, apparently catching up after his holiday. Stiles was working happily on something that resembled a teenager's science project on steroids, it also seemed a heck of a lot of more explosive.

Derek watched from the doorway as his betas did as they wished and forgot their initial aim. They all seemed content with just waiting until Stiles finished whatever it was that he was doing. How easily they sunk into slow, methodical activity astonished him. He sat defeatedly down on the second lowest step and rested his cheek on his closed fist. He saw no reason to disrupt the peace, he didn't really want to ask the kid for help anyway.

So instead he simply gazed around the basement, taking in the view. It was much like the upper level of the house. Cluttered with interesting things, boxes of things that smelt like elderberries and looked like machines as unrecognisable as they were. There were two main workbenches, all covered with tools, from screwdrivers to great big, whirring drills that looked as if they could go though gold alloy. Derek wondered if Stiles ever pissed off the neighbours with the noise. Surely he was clever enough to soundproof the basement.

He could only hope.

It was only two hours and one and a half books later that they finally gathered in the living room, the last of the fried rice finally tossed aside. Apparently Alison had just decided to buy the entire menu.

Derek had somehow migrated from the stairs to the sofa and was quietly reading, lying peacefully, minding his own goddamn business thank you very much. About five seconds later Stiles wandered, in his hands greasy and his hair sticking out at odd angles, Scott at his hip. They were taking about some movie yet to be released. He then promptly sat on Derek's stomach and continued to sip the milkshake he seemed to of pulled out of the air. Maybe that was what he was doing in the basement. Stiles looked down at him and he glared.

"So what did you guys want anyway?"

Derek immediately shoved him off his stomach and Stiles slid to the ground, laughing, apparently he simply enjoyed making Derek annoyed.

"But, seriously, what are you doing in my house?" Derek rolled over, grumbling something about personal space and politeness. He pressed his noes into his book and flapped his hand vaguely in the direction of Scott. He didn't feel like explaining it. He could feel Stile's head resting on the back of his leg from where he was leaning on the sofa and he resisted the powerful urge to throw him across the room. Something told him that would be impolite.

"So, you know how you saved Derek when he came stumbling out of the ally right?" Derek grunted at the sound of Scott's prompt, he didn't think that he had really been saved, more like been the subject of the meddling of an eight year old in the form of a young man. He felt Stiles nod and Scott sit down at his feet. "Yeah, well, we're pretty sure that something shotty going on in town and the guy who ran Derek down was involved so we need you to find out who he was" Stiles, for once, went quiet and lacked a witty retort.

"What type of shotty? Like murder shotty? Or are we talking someone stealing quarters from the gas station that you feel some weird responsibility over?" He was babbling and he barely stopped himself short, they could all hear the lack of an ending to his sentences, but still his questions hung dankly in the air. Almost everyone exchanged anxious glances.

"We don't actually know. All we know is that something weird is going on and we would like to find out what. If its going on in our territory we have a right to know" Scott's words were strong willed and stubborn, like he was trying to convince Stiles of something. Stiles bit his lip from the ground and Derek could practically hear the cogs in the kid's brain turning, calculating the options.

"Well… I can't do shit without the plates of the truck" Stiles folded his hands on his stomach. He remembered all the research he did when Scott got bitten. Back before Allison. Then he moved to the city with Scott and Scott met Allison and Stiles met Alison and Scott met Derek and Stiles eventually met Derek. It was just this big meeting thing. Anyway, he understood the whole territory thing, he had heard that city wolves were even more territorial so, sure, he'd lend a hand. He saw no harm in that.

"29SF-00BM" Derek repeated mindlessly. I was hard to forget the last thing you see before getting run over. He heard Stiles sigh huffily to himself, as if entertaining the idea that he would usually be in bed at this time.

"Alright, fine, your going to have to repeat that Sourwolf, 'cause I won't remember it. Someone get me my laptop too… and my glasses from down stairs" Stiles flapped his arms about and made a clucking noise in the back of his throat. Later, much later, Scott would tell him that he had gotten it from his father, who he would also meet much later.

Five minutes later Stiles was still on the floor, though now he had a pair of rectangular, bulky glasses that somehow suited his face unfairly well after the terrible trio had dragged themselves down the stairs and then back up again and a shiny laptop covered in stickers sitting on his knees. He was tapping away contentedly. Derek watched over his shoulder. He didn't trust computers yet this kid seemed completely natural with one. It took a few moments but soon some sort of program appeared on the screen, with small search bar in its centre and barely any design. Just the search bar and button.

"Number?" He requested.

"29SF-00BM" Derek's voice was muffled by the book resting lightly over his mouth, though Stiles grunted in an affirmative manner. He noted the few clicks of the keyboard buttons being pressed down and slowly closing his eyes, waiting for Stiles to say something. After a few minutes he reopened his eyes again, feeling confused. Surely it didn't take minutes to get the name of just one guy.

Stiles had his head back, leaning solidly on Derek thigh, his eyes closed his expression peaceful. Derek might of thought he was sleeping had his fingers not of been tapping in a continuous impatient rhythm on either side of the mouse pad.

"What… are you doing?" His voice was strained from the itching sleepiness of the night. He watched as Stiles' eyes opened in a flash as if he had forgotten that the person he was leaning on was actually capable of speech. Eyes made of molten gold looked over to him with a surprised expression, before relaxing and looking back down his computer screen.

"I'm waiting" he answered promptly as if he simply didn't have time for the likes of Derek Hale. The older man frowned and hit the kid over the back of the head.

"Why? What's wrong with it?" He growled, his voice going into his default tone.

"Hey, cut it some slack, its only scanning every number plate in the whole country. I mean not even the police have this program. I had to steal it from the FBI..." He continued to mutter to himself, while Derek simply decided to accept his fate and stare at the screen. From his feet Scott looked like he'd heard the speech before, as had Allison who was holding up a conversation with Lydia. Derek almost puffed out his cheeks like a child, but he resisted for the sake of his dignity.

He just really wanted to go home.

"Alright, Mr Broody McBroodypants, we have our man, as devastatingly handsome as he is. Well, in some sort of weird, oldish sort of way" for a few seconds he continued to babble about the roguish handsomeness of whoever decided to leave Derek on the cold hard ground. After a few moments he realised grudgingly that he wasn't going to get any actual information out of the guy anytime soon. He rolled over, clamping his hand over Stiles and peering down at the computer screen.

And there, in annoying ultra colour, was his uncle. Smirking like the world is fine and he just got to stomp some puppies.


End file.
